The invention is in the field of substrate handling and deals with the handling of multi-board (mother) panels and individual printed circuit boards (hereafter referred to as boards) which are liberated or "depaneled" from each mother panel by a machine-mounted router which is displaceable in X, Y, and Z relative to the panel in order to accomplish the depaneling. The individual boards may have had little or no routing around their peripheries prior to handling by such a machine. Others of the panels may have been routed to an extent that only small tabs or webs of the substrate material remain to hold the boards in the panel with sufficient rigidity that they remain attached during automated population of the boards with electrical components. The latter type of panel generally is referred to in the industry as a slotted and webbed (or tabbed) array.
The individual boards generally are not designed with an eye toward automated handling of the boards once they are separated from the multi-board panel. Unlike the mother panel, the peripheries of individual boards vary widely in size and shape, and a different "routing path" is required for each different location and/or periphery of a board contained within the panel.
The invention is directed to a fixture on which the panels and/or circuit boards are registered and fixedly supported for transfer to and from the routing area of a programmed depaneling machine.
A typical prior art depaneling process utilizes a different prefabricated fixture for registering and supporting each differently profiled and/or configured panel or board to be liberated from the panel. Each fixture is placed, in turn, in a load/unload station of the machine, loaded with one or more panels by an operator, and transported by the machine to the routing area. Upon completion of the routing program, the fixture is returned by machine back to the load/unload station for removal of panels and liberated boards by the operator. If successive identical panels are to be processed, then the fixture is reloaded with the next identical panel. Otherwise, the fixture is removed from the machine and replaced with a fixture which has been fabricated specifically for handling the next panel to be processed.
This prior art requires that a separate and different "dedicated" fixture be designed, manufactured, and assembled for each differently profiled or configured panel or board to be routed, thus involving the use of engineering and manufacturing resources and the concurrent costs of employing these resources.
Thus, an object of this invention to provide a fixturing device which is readily reconfigurable in order to establish and maintain registered control of panels and/or the individual boards in preparation for, during, and after processing of a multi-board panel.
Also, it is an object of the invention to avoid the need for so-called "dedicated fixtures" by providing a fixturing pallet which has a platform and various manually adjustable tooling components which are removably mountable on the platform in order to provide different fixture configurations for registering and supporting a variety of panels.
Additionally, it is an object of the invention to provide a reconfigurable fixturing device having a platform on which a variety of tooling is removably attachable and adjustable in order to physically support each individual board as it is liberated from a panel and to retain registration between the machine and each board during the depaneling process.
Another object of the invention is to provide at least some of the registering and supporting tooling with vertically adjustable cone-shaped pins so that, by raising or lowering the cone-shaped pins, the same supporting component can be used with board registration holes of different sizes.
Still another object of the invention is to provide for easy and accurate adjustment of the lateral spacing between tooling of the fixture so as to facilitate reconfiguration of the fixturing pallet.
Further, it is an object of the invention to provide that the registration of the panel to the novel pallet and machine is easily and accurately repeatable in order to repeatably duplicate set-ups which have been used previously.
Still further, it is an object of the invention to provide a fixturing pallet which is easily and removably mountable and repeatably registerable on a moveable or fixed table, such as the table or surface of a shuttle on which fixtures are transported to and from the routing station of the machine.
Still another object of the invention is to provide a fixturing pallet which is capable of receiving and registering auxiliary, "dedicated" fixtures which have been prefabricated to support and register particular multi-board panels for processing by the routing machine.
Also, it is an object of the invention to provide a fixturing pallet and tooling with which a phenolic panel or the like is registerable to facilitate fabrication of such "dedicated" fixtures on the router machine.
These and other objects of the invention will become more apparent from the remaining disclosure.